1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a character input mode of a mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the development of mobile terminal rapidly progresses, the need for a mobile terminal that permits both wireless voice communication and can also exchange information in other forms (such as text) has become a daily necessity. In the early stage of development, a mobile terminal was primarily used as a portable product that can enable wireless communication. As the technology develops and wireless Internet was introduced, the mobile terminal gradually expanded its utilization range to games, a remote controller using short distance communication, and image capturing using a mounted digital camera as well as the purposes of simple telephone communication or schedule management to meet a user's desire.
Of functions of the mobile terminal, a short message service (SMS) function has an advantage of a relatively inexpensive cost of operation when compared with voice communication, and SMS has become the communication method of choice by many wireless users.
In addition to utilizing a short message service, there has also been developed a multimedia message service, which is a message service including a moving image, a photo, a music file, etc. therein, is a representative wired/wireless integrated service that combines an advantage of the short message service and an advantage of an electronic mail service. Since the multimedia message service may add and provide multimedia contents, there has been increased frequency of use of the mobile terminal.
The multimedia message comprises a message service configuring text, music, an image, a moving image, link information, etc. in combination and transmitting the same. A user may transmit a wireless postcard or picture, a moving image, a moving image card map, a card, etc. via the multimedia message.
Recently, as a mobile terminals having a touch screen are being the most popular type of mobile terminal on the market with increased, a user may write a text message by touching a virtual keyboard output on the touch screen.
Since the mobile terminal discriminates and outputs the virtual keyboard and a character input field for outputting a character input via the virtual keyboard on the touch screen, a user determines whether characters of a text message that is currently being written are normally written without a misprint/omitted character while viewing the character input field.
In the case where a user of the mobile terminal writes a text message while viewing only the virtual keyboard because the user is not accustomed to a character input method, the user may write an incorrect character one or more times because the user is not aware of occurrence of the incorrect character.
Therefore, in order to solve the above problems, there is a need in the art for an apparatus and a method that can swiftly determine whether a misprint/omitted character occurs while inputting a character in a mobile terminal.